


Home from the Wars

by ScoutLover



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Consensual Sex, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-03
Updated: 2015-05-03
Packaged: 2018-03-28 21:29:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3870430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScoutLover/pseuds/ScoutLover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is ugly, vicious work … and she shines in the midst of it. She is beautiful in her murder, a creature of fury, blood and death, and he cannot imagine how he has ever thought her cold before. She is smiling, sneering, grinning, taunting, and suddenly he wants nothing more than to taste the curses she is spewing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home from the Wars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Charis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charis/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Never and Always](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3614349) by [Charis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charis/pseuds/Charis). 



> This is for Charis, and inspired by her gorgeous story, _Never and Always_ (seriously, go read it; you’ll thank me). More specifically, it sprang from the comment thread at the end of her Chapter 9.
> 
> For those who haven't read her story (no, really, _read. it._ ), just know that Tréville has drafted Milady to be his chief spy. (Please, S3 writers, do this.)
> 
> This was _supposed_ to be something else, but it turned into this because these two. Good Jesus, _these two_. (side-eyes the problematic couple)

He’d been raised to be a gentleman – polite, courtly, _honorable_. Even in combat.

 _A gentleman fights for honor, and the honor of his King, and allows his opponent that same honor_ , his father had taught.

He had been raised _by_ a gentleman to _be_ a gentleman.

She, apparently, had been raised by … badgers.

He can hear his father’s disapproval and disdain whispering through his mind now, and he knows he should share it. But his father isn’t here, isn’t fighting for his life against a pack of cutthroats desperate to keep the Captain of the King’s Musketeers and the Minister of War’s favorite spy from reaching said minister with news of the Spanish spymaster’s latest plan–

And his father isn’t watching _her_ fight.

Which Athos _is_. Probably a bit too closely for his own health, if that latest burning pain across his left bicep is any indication.

The bastard facing him had pulled a dagger from seemingly nowhere and gotten under his guard, slashing him through his doublet before he’d even seen the wicked little blade.

“That is _not_ how a gentleman fights!” he snarls as he pivots away from another underhanded – literally – thrust and shoves his poignard into the bastard’s chest, through his heart. He pulls his blade free and shoves the man away, watching as he falls and dies.

 _Your opponent should die facing you_ , his father had insisted. _He should see and know who has bested him. And you, the victor, should grant him the final dignity of your attention until he has passed._

Of course, his father had probably never fought multiple foes, all intent upon killing him and not particularly concerned about how they did it. Still, there are _rules_ , goddamn it.

Spin, parry, parry, feint, twist, lunge, _thrust_. He is a two-handed fighter, and his sword and poignard work in perfect concert, the two flashing, clashing, darkening with blood. They are extensions of his arms, of himself, each movement instinctive, unconscious, precise. He pays more conscious heed to his opponents’ eyes, blades and bodies, to his footing on the uneven, rock- and root-littered ground–

And to her.

_Goddamn it._

She’s got her own blades – he’s lost count of them, can’t imagine where she keeps them all, and feels another blade nick him when he thinks about _that_ too long – as well as her pistol, which by now has been reduced to a club. She’s also got her fingers, finger _nails_ , feet, elbows, knees and teeth, all of which she uses without shame, and with a vicious glee.

He can hear his father’s choked sound of horror in his mind.

She’s a stabbing, slashing, gouging whirlwind of fury, hair flying, green eyes spitting fire, red lips spitting curses. Suddenly she’s grabbed, thrown and goes down hard, the bastard who’d thrown her fumbling with his breeches and leering down at her with obvious, and ugly, intent. Fury rises hard and hot in Athos, but the two men lunging for _him_ stop him from getting to _her_.

In a red rage, he kills them both – sword spilling the intestines of one, poignard ripping through the throat of the other – but even as he starts toward her, she slams her foot into her opponent’s crotch, tearing an anguished scream from him, then rolls and leaps up, blade slicing into his genitals as she rises, then plunging through his eye and into his brain.

It is ugly, vicious work … and she shines in the midst of it. She is beautiful in her murder, a creature of fury, blood and death, and he cannot imagine how he has ever thought her cold before. She is smiling, sneering, grinning, taunting, and suddenly he wants nothing more than to taste the curses she is spewing–

But there’s no time. There are more men coming at them – of _course_ there are, because apparently the two of them require an entire goddamned _regiment_ to stop them – and he has no choice but to tear into the men who keep coming at him–

While occasionally sparing an unwise glance at the angel of death across the way.

*****

She can’t help watching Athos. She’s fighting for her life, for the papers secreted in her boot–

But, dear God, the man is an artist!

Even with bodies piling up around him, in the midst of such brutal carnage, he is elegance, grace and beauty personified, all lithe and fluid, flowing ease of movement, spinning, twisting, thrusting, lunging, arms and feet and body all working in perfect accord.

They’re in a forest, in a vicious fight for their very lives, quite possibly for the future of _France_ –

And Athos looks like he’s in a goddamned _ballroom_!

She knows how he looks in a ballroom, because she’s seen it. Danced with him. Felt the glorious warmth of his arms about her, his hands upon her, his body against her, his green eyes engulfing her–

Oh, no. No, no. There’s just no _time_ for that now.

She feels another man’s hand upon her – and where the hell did _he_ come from? – and has to tear her attention from Athos to the bastard grabbing and groping her like she’s some tavern whore. Fury flashes through her as he tries to rip open her shirt, and she grabs his hands and _twists_ , breaking both wrists with an audible _snap_. He howls and she strikes, silencing him with a blade between his ribs and into his heart.

It’s quite possibly the most merciful kill she’s made today.

But she doesn’t care about mercy. Or about honor or the fucking _code_.

Unlike the noble idiot across from her, dancing his way – _chivalrously_ – through the knot of men pressing ever more closely, ever more dangerously, about him, each trying to be the one to end the flashing of that killing blade.

Each thinking _he_ will be the one to finally end the dance.

She could almost laugh. As if any man here is _nearly_ good enough to best Athos!

Still, a few have come worryingly close – and what _is_ causing those stupid lapses in his attention? – and she can no longer stand it. She grabs the lank hair of the man nearest her and pulls his head down, slamming the heel of her hand into his nose and driving it into his brain. Thrusting his body away, she palms a blade deftly and hurls it into the throat of the man who has just dared raise his dagger to Athos’ back.

No one gets to kill Olivier d’Athos de la Fère with a knife to the back.

Except his wife.

Some day.

Possibly.

But not today.

She rushes forward, pausing only long enough to pull her knives from the bodies of her victims, and begins winnowing down the number of men menacing Athos. A thrust to a back, a slash across a gullet, here a sliced hamstring, there a ruined shoulder. She kills and maims with equal ease, equal skill, using every weapon at her disposal, every nasty trick she’s learned in the gutters of Paris.

What she wouldn’t give to find a loaded pistol. Or three.

When she grabs a man from behind and cuts his throat, Athos throws her a look of equal parts disapproval and–

She catches her breath and stiffens, certain she is wrong. But she’s _seen_ that heat glazing those green eyes before, has felt it scorching her skin–

An answering heat rises in her, and she gives him a small, knowing smile in return.

Then turns to gut another man.

Naughty, _naughty_ captain.

Then, before she can quite process it, they’re done. They stand on their private battlefield, amid the dead, the dying and the maimed, the two of them exhausted and bathed in blood, both their own and that of their victims. His sword and poignard dangle at his sides from still fingers, her own fingers loosely hold a dagger clotted with blood, hair and bits of flesh and a pistol filthy with the same.

But they’re alive.

Mostly.

He staggers forward a small step, seemingly only barely catching himself, and she drops her weapons and rushes forward, catching him tightly in her arms. This close, she can see the gashes in his doublet – the black leather stained even darker by blood – and the slices in his flesh.

“Idiot,” she breathes, tightening her hold on him and gazing up into eyes only now clearing of the haze of battle.

He lets his blades fall to the ground and brings up his arms, circling them about her and twisting his gloved fingers into the folds of her short cloak. “Savage,” he whispers, bowing his head to rest it against hers. “Are you all right?”

She stays silent for long moments, taking stock. She aches in more places than she cares to admit, can feel the burn of gashes in various places, knows tomorrow her entire body will be a tapestry of livid, painful bruises.

Just another day’s work, then.

“Nothing that a bottle of good wine and a long soak in a blissfully warm tub won’t cure,” she answers at last. “You?”

He thinks a moment, then nods. “Wine would be good.”

She frowns and pushes him away slightly, staring sharply at him. “That did not answer my question.”

He sighs and steps back from her, visibly gathering himself. “We have to get to Tréville,” he says, as if that settles everything.

For him, it probably does.

But she’s _not_ him.

He kneels to retrieve his blades – and almost pitches face-first into the dirt. She’s kneeling beside him in an instant, again slipping her arms about him to steady him, intensely aware of his heat and weight against her.

It’s more familiar, more _pleasurable_ , than she cares to admit.

“Idiot,” she says again.

“Possibly,” he allows. He tries to stand again … and slumps back into her. “Probably,” he sighs.

His voice – low, husky, slightly breathless – brushes against her on his sigh and sends a curl of warmth, _heat_ , sweeping through her. It’s wrong, she knows – she’s exhausted and sore, nerves still jangling, and he’s exhausted, quite possibly, _certainly_ , hurt – but when has it ever been different?

She’s come to accept the _wrong_ between them as _right_.

Still, she looks around again, takes in the bodies, and makes a decision. “You stay here, catch your breath. I’ll get the horses. We need to get away from here–”

“Tréville–”

“Can _wait_ ,” she says firmly, refusing to budge on this point. “The sun will be setting soon, and neither of us is up to a night ride. Besides,” she smirks, “I’ve got Armagnac in my saddlebags and I’m willing to share, _if_ you do as I say. And it’s the good stuff.”

He scowls. “That’s not fair.”

“I know.” She smirks again and rises to her feet. “But I’m a savage, remember?”

*****

They’ve found a spot further into the forest, a small clearing that meets with his approval for security and hers for privacy. There’s even a stream nearby for bathing.

It’s not _quite_ the hot bath they both need, but it’s much better than nothing.

He allows her time to bathe and tend her wounds while he tends the horses and sets up camp. A small, treacherous voice in his mind urges him to join her in the water, but he resolutely ignores it. That way lies madness.

And … other things.

Besides, frankly, he’s just too tired. By the time he’s built the fire and laid out their blankets – a respectable distance apart – all he can do is sit down on his and contemplate removing his weapons and doublet. He knows that’s not good.

He’s still sitting there, contemplating, when she comes back from the stream, dressed only in the clean shift she’d pulled from her saddlebags and carrying her blood-stained clothing. Her small feet are bare, her dark hair hanging over her shoulders and down her back in a wet mass of curls. She’s beautiful.

He knows _that’s_ not good, either.

She drops her ruined clothing on the ground and comes straight to him, kneeling on his blankets beside him, close enough that he can smell the soap she used. Jasmine. Of course.

“Take off your clothes,” she says without preamble.

He blinks, looks at her, frowns. “I’m … sorry?”

She sighs and rolls her eyes. “I want to see what’s wrong with you. Take off your clothes.”

As propositions go, it’s certainly original. And slightly insulting.

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” he says firmly, sitting up straight – and instantly regretting it as he feels a painful pull in his back, under his left shoulder.

“Idiot,” she says again, and it’s beginning to sound like an endearment. “Will you take off your clothes, or shall I do it for you?”

His mind whites out for a moment, and he’s fairly certain – and somewhat ashamed – that the small, choked sound he hears comes from his own throat. When he blinks back to himself, she’s still waiting, still staring at him … but sitting closer than he remembers. And smiling.

“I–”

He knows he should say more, say _something_ , but can’t. He knows he should look away, but can’t. Just now, her eyes comprise his whole world, her sweet scent the only air he cares to breathe. Unable to help himself, he lifts a hand to her face, then sees the blood staining his glove and winces, dropping his hand again, the spell broken.

Maybe.

She doesn’t wait any longer, simply reaches down and begins unbuckling his sword and pistol belts, pulling them away and dropping them to one side. He pulls off his gloves and begins unfastening the buttons on his doublet at the same time she does, their fingers colliding, brushing, stroking. Tangling.

Not _entirely_ broken, then.

The doublet falls open, but before he can shrug out of it she bends closer still to inspect it, her slim, deft fingers finding every slice, every tear, her sharp eyes searching each for blood. It is strangely intimate, and he submits to it without bothering to question himself.

What is the point, at this point?

Only when she has finished does he strip off the doublet – and stiffens immediately at her sharp intake of breath. When he turns back, her eyes are wide in her pale face and fixed on his left side. Without even bothering to look down, he knows she’s staring at the blood on his shirt. His upper left arm, his back under his left shoulder blade, his left side above his hip. All on the left. Because she’d been fighting to his right, and as he’d been constantly turning to watch her, he’d repeatedly left himself open on that side.

Idiot, indeed.

But she is not one to shrink from the sight of blood, having spilled – and very likely shed – enough of it herself. She simply sighs, shakes her head, and begins stripping him of his shirt.

“You have another, I presume?” she asks.

He nods. “In my saddleb—”

And without warning or asking permission, she rips his shirt between her hands.

He utters a soft growl and snatches it from her. “That could have been saved–”

She snatches it back. “No, it couldn’t.” She rips again, and again, until it is in strips. “But at least now it will be useful.” She turns to her saddlebags and rummages through them, retrieving a few items. Then she pushes to her feet and holds her free hand down to him. “Come with me. This will be easier down by the stream.”

Without argument, he puts his right hand in hers and reaches with his left for his sword. It hurts like bloody hell, but there’s no way in this world he’s going unarmed. Not after this day.

She doesn’t question the impulse – if anyone understands, she does – and steadies him as he rises to his feet. She continues to steady him as they walk down to the stream.

He continues to let her.

They find a grassy spot near the water’s edge. She helps him strip off his boots, stockings and breeches, and he lets her. He tells himself it’s because of his injuries, but he knows he’s lying. He remembers this from before, when he didn’t _need_ the excuse of war wounds to let her undress him, when neither of them needed excuses for _anything_. When _they_ were all the reason they had, and it was enough.

She washes him clean with water from the stream and binds his wounds with pieces of his shirt, and he lets himself relax into her touch. Can’t stop himself. Doesn’t even try. Silence falls between them, and this, too, is soothing. Comfortable. _Familiar_. For all the times they’d talked and laughed and spun dreams between them before, they’d been quiet, too, shared the silence and stillness of peace and contentment, his head in her lap or hers in his, the whole world shining around them.

Now their world is at war, he’s a soldier and she’s a spy, they’ve just fought their way through a bloody ambush … and he swears this little piece of the world is still shining.

Until she pours the brandy in the gash in his back.

“Goddamn it!” he roars, shooting to his feet and spinning around to stare at her as fire sears into him.

She merely smirks and shakes her head. “You never used to swear like that,” she scolds. “Mouth of a barracks rat on you. Besides, you know it has to be done.” She pats the ground. “Sit down and be still so I can stop you from bleeding to death.”

He huffs out a breath but sits back down. “I’m not going to bleed to death,” he grumbles, though he’s well aware that he’s already lost more than could be properly considered good. “They’re grazes–”

“The one to your arm and leg, yes,” she agrees, referring to the long gash on his right thigh they’d discovered when she’d stripped him of his breeches. Or that _she’d_ discovered. He’d been quite acutely aware of it already. “But the one in your back and above your hip will require stitching. You really should pay more attention when you fight.”

“I _was_ paying attention.”

She leans forward and sets her chin on his right shoulder. “I meant to the man you are fighting,” she whispers, knowing far more than she should.

He feels the blush rising in his face. “You have always been a distraction,” he admits softly. “And I was merely making certain _you_ were all right.”

She utters a short, sharp laugh and lifts her chin from his shoulder. “Me?” she scoffs. “I am always all right, you know that. I can fight as well as any man.”

“Well, you brawl as well as Porthos, I’ll give you that.”

“ _Brawl?_ ” she protests sharply.

“What else would you call it?” he asks, disdain leaking through the words. “I don’t doubt that you are capable of an assassin’s stealth, but what you did today was sheer brawl– God _damn_ it, woman!” he shouts and lunges again to his feet as more fire erupts at his hip.

When he turns around, she is scowling up at him, holding a blood-stained and brandy-soaked piece of what had been his shirt. “I was fighting for my life!” she seethes, green eyes aflame. “Forgive me for being more concerned with _surviving_ than the code of fucking _chivalry_ and the pretty points of _fencing_!”

“Fenc– _Fencing_?” he snarls, taking a step forward and balling his hands into fists … and discovering another cut on the back of his left one. _Shit._ But, insulted by her scorn for his profession – _which he carries out with quite notable skill, thank you_ – he thrusts out an arm to point back in the direction from which they had come, and where he had left _a rather impressive number of bodies_. “How many did I kill back there? How many of those bastards did my _code_ and my _fencing_ save you from?”

“I didn’t need _saving_!” she spits, scrambling to her feet. “I’m not some helpless woman who needs a strutting Musketeer to _save_ me from the big, bad men! I can fight my own battles, and have been doing so–”

“I do not _strut_ ,” he hisses between gritted teeth, his body tensing, his blood starting to boil. As only she can make it. He takes a step toward her, then heaves a sharp breath and turns away, no longer even certain _why_ they’re arguing.

Except that it’s the two of them, and apparently this is what they do.

He sighs and bows his head, the tension abruptly draining from him. He’s too _tired_ to fight with her right now, too tired to do _anything_. Except sink back down onto the grass, which he does, and submit to her ministrations.

Which she returns to with a sigh almost as heavy as his.

Peace is gradually restored between them – and they’re getting better at this, at pulling back, at biting off words, at reining in tempers and choosing _not_ to do each other damage. They’ve given each other enough scars already.

“You do strut, a little,” she says as she sews up the gash in his back. “But I suppose it goes with the uniform. _Captain._ ”

He can hear the smile in her voice, and smiles a bit himself even through the pain of her stitching. But he sips again from the bottle of Armagnac, lets the familiar burn of the brandy ease the equally familiar burn of the needle.

“I still can’t imagine what Tréville was thinking when he did that,” he chuckles. “Surely there had to be someone else.”

“Someone else, possibly,” she says, tying off the thread. “But no one better. Now your hip.”

He blinks at her offhanded compliment, but obediently stretches out on his right side to let her tend the wound at his left. Her fingers are light, deft, quick, but her touch sears across his torn flesh like small jolts of lighting. He drinks again from the bottle, breathes through the pain of the needle and the pleasure of her touch, then turns his head to gauge her progress, lifting a brow at the neat row of stitches.

“Aramis will be jealous,” he jokes.

A smile teases at her lips as she lifts her head to meet his gaze. “Won’t like the thought of anyone else tending you so closely?”

He gasps and chokes at her words, and their implication, can feel his face flaming even as it twists into a mask of shock and horror.

She laughs aloud. “So _not_ so much the barracks rat, eh, my dear comte?”

He takes another desperate drink of brandy, trying to school his face and thoughts into something approaching order. He’s been a soldier too long _not_ to know all that goes on in the barracks, can’t even find it in himself any longer, really, to disapprove, _but_ –

Good God in heaven, there are things in this world that one simply does not _joke_ about!

She laughs again, a delightful sound that reminds him of summer days, green fields and blue flowers.

“Poor Athos,” she teases, “a noble knight of old in a world gone mad. You really were meant for a more honorable time.”

“There has never been such a time,” he sighs, bowing his head and dropping his gaze to the ground. “It has only ever existed in the books in my father’s library.”

“ _Your_ library,” she reminds him somewhat pointedly. “Then again, you never truly felt at ease as comte, did you? You always felt your father peering over your shoulder.” She sets a few more stinging stitches. “Was that house ever _not_ filled with ghosts?”

He tries to remember such a time, and cannot. “A hazard, I suppose,” he finally breathes, “of living amongst a dozen generations of the dead. Some are bound to get restless.” A pained smile twists at his mouth. “Perhaps I should have burnt it before you did.”

It wasn’t meant to be a jab, truly, but she seems to take it as one. Her fingers falter at her stitching, then leave his body entirely. He lifts his head and turns it to see her sitting with hers slightly bowed. “Anne?”

She sighs softly and lifts her eyes to his. “I can’t say I regret what I did,” she says quietly. “I think we’re both better off with that place, and its ghosts, gone. But … I am sorry for the books. I know how much you loved them.”

He remembers those books, that library, the long, blissful hours he’d spent reading there. _Hiding_ there. When his father had grown too demanding or Thomas too rowdy, or when the burdens of his duties had simply pressed too heavily upon him, he’d taken refuge in that room, in those books, losing himself amid the worlds contained in their pages.

“I have … replaced … a few of those I held most dear,” he says at last, thinking of the small – _very_ small – library in his room at the garrison. No, now in his trunk in his captain’s tent at the war camp.

Another home gone, then.

He shakes off the mood and sets the bottle aside. The brandy is too good, too tempting. And he knows his own weakness.

“I could still bleed to death,” he prompts her gently, arching a teasing brow.

She stares at him a moment, then utters a soft, wry laugh and returns to her stitching. “I must say, I’m surprised you’re actually losing _blood_.” Her smile stretches into a grin. “I thought you’d bleed wine.”

He looses a short, startled bark of laughter at that, wondering when his drinking had gone from a source of worry and despair to so many to a subject for joking. But he _has_ gotten better, he knows. He hasn’t crawled into a bottle and pulled the cork in after him in ages, is content now merely to visit the beast occasionally, exchange pleasantries and then walk away with his sobriety intact.

Mostly.

“There, done,” she announces, tying off the thread. “You will live.”

“I am glad to hear it,” he says with a small smile. “Thank you.” He watches her as she puts away the needle and thread and picks up bandages – what’s left of his shirt. “I suppose I will need to sit up,” he sighs, lethargy crawling through him. It’s the brandy, blood loss and aftermath of the fight, all intimately familiar to him.

“It would help,” she agrees, then extends a hand to him.

He takes her hand, lets her pull him upright – and slumps into her with a soft, breathless groan as a wave of vertigo hits him.

“Athos!”

She slips her arms about him, steadies him, and he clutches at her – and suddenly it’s too much. _She’s_ too much. She is too close, too warm, too soft, too–

_Anne._

He breathes her name, pulls her to him, and her mouth is exactly where he wants it, _needs_ it, to be, his own finding it with an unerring homing instinct. He pulls her closer still, tightens his arms about her and buries his mouth in hers with another groan, drinking as deeply, as desperately, of her as he ever had from any bottle. Needing her more than anything he’d ever found there.

And she is willing, God, _so_ willing, as if she needs something she can only find in _him_. She opens her mouth to his, tangles her tongue with his, slides into his lap and tries to crawl beneath his skin, drags long, strong fingers down the back she’s only just sewn up.

He is lost, _found_ , at home in one of only two places he has ever _been_ at home – the garrison, and her. Not la Fère, not his father’s house, not the ancestral home she’d burned down around him, but _her_.

_Anne._

The first home he’d ever truly known and had almost gone mad from losing.

And now he’s going mad again, she’s burning him alive again, and he thinks – knows – he’ll die if either of them sees sense and stops this.

But neither of them has ever been good at seeing sense where the other is involved, and they don’t stop. _Can’t_ stop. They’ve already been too sensible for too long, and they both have limits. Are now racing far beyond those limits.

He strips off her shift, takes only moments to tug off his braes, then pulls her to him once more, craving her nakedness as he’s never craved any drink. Their mouths meet, crush, do battle, they bite and kiss as if they are drowning and the only air to be found is in the other. Her hands are in his hair, at his back, and his are _everywhere_ , mapping out anew every inch of the body he’d once known better than his own.

He rolls her back and down onto the grass and tears his mouth from hers, dragging it across her jawline and down her throat, finding the throbbing pulse there and biting and sucking until a bruise blossoms, then laving the bloom with his tongue. He nips at her collarbone, slides down her body so his mouth can explore further, reacquainting itself with her.

He trails kisses over the white hills of her breasts, feasts on the dark buds of her nipples, licks and nibbles at the sweep of ribs and the soft curve of belly, hip and thigh. She is clutching at him, clawing at him, writhing beneath and thrusting against him, pulling his hair and gasping out his name. He nuzzles his face into the dark thatch between her legs, his beard in her curls, then goes lower still. Her legs open for him and he buries his face in her wet warmth, licking, drinking, inhaling _her_ until she is all that exists in him.

But it isn’t enough, has never been enough, will never _be_ enough. He is a fool and he knows it, but he is and ever has been _her_ fool, and, just for now, for just this moment, the world shines with the rightness of it. He slides up her body once more, worships her face with trembling fingers and devoted mouth, and sinks his aching, needy flesh into her.

_Home._

They move together at first in the familiar rhythm from before, but soon seek and find something else. They aren’t those people any more, can never be those people again, are both older, sadder, wiser, _harder_ , both carrying wounds that will likely never heal, scars visible and not, hearts and souls that have been so badly twisted and broken they can never be truly whole again.

Except here, now, in this place, this little haven from the fighting and the dying and the hurt they have inflicted on each other.

Their own private battlefield.

He doesn’t _want_ to do battle with her, wants to be gentle, tender, _adoring_ , as he was before, wants to venerate her as his altar, his path to God. But that callow youth is gone, and the man who remains is no longer certain such a path exists. She is wild beneath him, against him, as ferocious in this as she was in the fight, and something just as fierce in him yearns to respond. But he tempers it, finds something in him that is both the youth he was and the man he is, and gives that to her gladly.

Gives _himself_ , whatever that is now, to her gladly.

They bring each other to gasping, shuddering, shattering release, sweat-gleaming bodies straining together, then sinking together, each muffling near-sobbing breaths in the other. He collapses against her, muscles losing cohesion and coordination at once, and buries his face in her neck and sodden hair, waiting for vision to return.

When it does, he sees the bruises and bright red gashes staining her body, belatedly remembers that she took as many hits in the fight as he, and rolls off her with a thickly whispered apology.

But she rolls with him, burrows into arms that open of their own accord for her and nestles against his body. He accepts what he is offered and wraps his arms around her, cradling her to him and marveling anew at how perfectly she fits.

Her hand wanders down his side, settles at his hip … and she exhales sharply, lifting her head to stare accusingly at him. “You’ve torn your stitches,” she chides.

“I had help,” he reminds her, his eyes drifting closed.

She huffs out a breath, but settles back down against him. “Idiot.”

“Savage.”

They do not sleep, but come close enough to it, content, for now, just to lie here, breathe in and feel each other, let bodies and minds grow still and find rest.

In this moment, in this place, they are home from the wars. Home from _their_ wars, taking what may well be the only peace granted to them.

_The End_


End file.
